Quote Originally Posted by Urbanized View Post
Yeah, the limiting factor is that to comply with ADA you cannot have a slope steeper than a 1" drop per foot of run (commonly known as a 1:12 slope) and no more than a 30' slope between landings so that if something gets away from someone it doesn't pick up too much speed.

In this case the vertical drop is maybe 10 feet, so that would mean about 120' of ramp minimum. The ramp would also need to have a certain width (not sure f that is 4' or 5' - I think ADA requires 4 and the City requires 5 in canal area). The good news is that the current retaining wall has quite a run, and it could be sacrificed to allow for long runs

Barring that, I think an elevator beside those stairs would still be great. They can be weather proofed better than the existing ones and cut down on maintenance.
To be honest, I think ADA is a hugely underestimated added cost to building transit systems. I was in Toronto recently, where the streetcars run on double tracks in the center two lanes, and traffic on all four lanes stops so that riders can walk across the road and step up into the streetcar. It was so non-ADA it wasn't funny, but it was very efficient. They must have well-funded demand-responsive specialized transit for mobility-challenged constituents.